If your friends don’t talk about money, you need new friends

If your friends don’t talk about money, you need new friends

Grant Cardone, Contributor Nov. 15, 2016, 11:35 AM | Courtesy of Business Insider 

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Instead of being offended by those who talk about money, you should avoid those who don’t.

Most of us have been taught that money is the root of all evil and one of the things you do not talk about.

In society it seems like it’s all right to tell people you are broke or middle class, but get rich and you can’t talk about money anymore.

For most people it’s like hearing nails on a chalkboard when someone talks about their Rolls-Royce, their jet, and their country club.

Why? I want to give you permission to talk about your financial success.

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Instead of being offended by those who talk about money, you should avoid those who don’t. And be wary of those who can’t make money, who spend all their money, or who can’t pick up the bill. You can’t learn anything from penny savers and misers who can squeeze a quarter until the eagle cries.

It’s not true that it takes money to make money. The truth is that it takes courage to make money; 80 percent of all millionaires today are first-generation millionaires. They didn’t inherit their money or start with money. You have to be courageous to connect with new customers, get more attention, and dominate your customers so that they can think of no one else.

Making money, keeping money, and then multiplying money requires a monster commitment, dedication, and an obsession with growth. If you work for someone else, take responsibility for growing the company, not just earning a paycheck. That will stack the deck for both your employer and you. Don’t be a mere spectator when it comes to making money. Be sure you are on the field trying to score.

There is so much money on this planet it is mind-boggling, yet most people have next to none. Most people don’t have money because they believe there is a shortage of money, or they believe they don’t deserve it or that it’s hard to get.

I take the attitude that money is everywhere. Everyone has money, and if they are treated right and provided with what they asked for (and more than that), they will happily give me their money. My battle cry is “Who’s got my money?”

When I was a young salesman and I needed new shoes or a new suit, I would show up to work and ask myself, Who’s got my money for my new suit and shoes? I would look for a customer to buy my products or services to get money for the products I, in turn, needed. You want revenue? Instead of being obsessed with never having enough, focus on how much money there is and on getting in front of those people who need what you’re offering.

Money is everywhere and my goal is to get mine. Because of this mind-set, money comes to me easily, effortlessly, and abundantly. I can spend a lot of it and give it away and still have plenty.

Republished with permission from “Be Obsessed or Be Average,” by Grant Cardone. Copyright © 2016 by Portfolio/Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

How To Join the Top Five Percent of Achievers in this World

How To Join the Top Five Percent of Achievers in this World

The examination of statistical data coupled with experiential observation has brought me to the conclusion that there is a huge gap between the top five percent of the performer and the rest of the world. Based on certain statistical data, human performance can be broken down into groups. In order to make this easy to understand as well as making the playing field level. We will say that a group of 100 men from similar backgrounds and equal education start their professional careers at age 25. Where do you think they will end up by age 65?

Let’s take a look at what the statistics suggest concerning the realities of these men by age 65.

  • 1 will end up rich (experiencing complete financial freedom)
  • 4 will experience financial independence (no longer having to work to support their lifestyle
  • 5 will still be working (not of passion but out of necessity
  • 36 will be dead
  • 54 will be dependent (on someone else or someform of an agency or organization)

So, only five percent of the group will earn a passing grade in the area of finance over the course of their lives.

Side note: Depending on which study is used, the statistics should be given a margin of error of two percent.

What is the common denominator with those who make up the five percent of exceptionally successful people in the world? Simply put, they are not conformist. While the non-conformist isfrowned upon in most sectors of society, they are generally the ones who excel.The non-conformist does not look around them to observe what others arethinking so they can follow suit.

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We live in a world of conformity. We are literally trained and conditioned to conform, even leading to us insisting on others to conform as well. The predominance of the public education experience is focused on developing conformity in thinking and behavior. People who land in the top five percent have learned to think for themselves — to entertain thoughts and ideas that are outside of the box of commonality.

The top five percent are those who have been constantly reminded that they are not being realistic.

“Being realistic is the quickest path to mediocrity.” ~ Will Smith

I often hear people complaining about the level of competition in a particular market. Most people will not enter the world ofentrepreneurship because they fear competition.

Do you know why competition exists at such high levels in the world? Because everyone is thinking and doing what someone else is thinking and doing. Very few people are exploring the unique potential embedded in their unique design.

Life is a complete thing — having a beginning, a middle, and an end. The end will be determined by what you do in the middle. Most people see the end or later years of their lives as a point of decline and something to fear and dread. This fear and dread are usually due to the fact that they did not properly plan for the end. When you see the value in your life and you pour into the work you do, there is no limit to what you can accomplish and the later years will prove to be the best years.

We live in a world in which people are conditioned to believe that there is a greater honor in one type of job than there is in another. The value and honor are not in the job or the work you do, but in how you view and approach it. I have seen attorneys and doctors struggle financially and never accomplish anything of significance. I have also seen more than one person start out on fries at McDonald’s and end up owning a McDonald’s franchise. What is the difference? One person had a mindset of excellence and excelling and the other simply sought to exist in a world that someone else established with no endgame in mind.

I encourage you to start to think outside of the box. Stop allowing yourself to be confined to the reality and ideas of others. When you study the path of the most successful people in history, they all decided to do what others thought was crazy or impossible. We fly around the world now because the Wright brothers decided to engage the impossible. We talk to people around the world in real time because someone decided it was possible despite being told they were not being realistic.

We now understand Einstein’s theory of relativity but that is only because he refused to accept that he was crazy and he thought for himself. As long as you continue to operate within the parameters of someone else’s reality, you will never fully experience life at the level of yourdesign.

Instead of following someone else’s chain of thought, why not determine that you are going to get out in front of the trend. Instead of following something someone else created, you are going to come up with the solution to an existing problem — allowing you to write your own ticket.

How much do you know about your industry? Could you be considered an expert in your industry? In as little as three years, you can become an expert in your field, and it is the experts who are paid handsomely. Learn to see beyond the job in order to see how your unique imprint can literally reshape the way the world sees what you do. The value is not in the job, it is in what you invest in the job. You are the X-factor.

One of the greatest failures of mankind is that we refused to prospect the unlimited potential of our minds. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.

10 Powerful Steps to Help You Escape the Rat Race

10 Tips that Will Help You Escape the Rat Race

10 Powerful Steps to Help You Escape the Rat Race

10 Tips that Will Help You Escape the Rat Race

It has long been the quest of the masses to discover some formula that will allow them to escape the rat race. When people discuss the rat race, they often view it as those people who are commonly referred to as normal, the average, or middle class. Personally, anyone who is working to sustain a situation that requires that they keep working is caught up in the rat race. In general, people who are considered middle class live reasonably comfortable lives, which in many ways is dangerous. People who are struggling financially know that something needs to change, even if they don’t know what.

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Most of the people who are considered middle class are not concerned with paying their basic bills, but what they are concerned with is whether they will ever be able to comfortably retire. Those closer to the poverty line have even more to be concerned with because every day is a struggle.

Imagine working on a job where your annual pay increase is not in step with the increase in the cost of living. No matter how hard they work, they never seem to get ahead. Basically, this is a situation in which a person is working for the sake of working. Working is not a means but the end.

While some people marry their way out of the rat race and others inherit money or win the lotto, they make up a very small portion of the population that are caught in the rat race. So, how does the average person lift themselves out of the rat race? Following are 10 powerful steps to help you escape the rat race.

  1. Change Your Thinking

While a substantial part of the rat race is determined by decisions and behavior, both are a direct result of a person’s thinking patterns and paradigms. So, in order to change erroneous behaviors and to be prepared to make better decisions a person has to create a paradigm shift that allows them to view life through a different lens. Your thinking frame show you see things and how you respond to them. It is immensely difficult to escape the rat race with a consumers mentality. It is hard to grow your wealth when you spend money faster than you can earn it — leading to the accumulation of debt. Many of us buy things that we don’t need in order to impress people we don’t like.

  • Stop Buying Stuff You Don’t Need

I sort of alluded to this problem in the first step, but we need to take an even deeper look into it. We live in a world in which we are highly subjected to propagandized messages through multiple mediums — messages that suggest we spend our hard-earned money on things we don’t need. We are bombarded by ads and commercials that show us all types of things that don’t fall in the category of a necessity; however, these ads suggest that you are somehow “less than” if you don’t have them. What this type of advertising has produced is an entire culture of people who are defined by material possessions rather than being defined by their character and moral turpitude. This cultural reality has resulted in millions of people not only buying things they don’t need but buying things they cannot afford. There has to be a shift in your thinking if you want to escape the treadmill of financial impotence.

  • Turn Your Side Hustle into Your Business

I often share my position that I believe that every person, regardless of their background or physical limitations, has a level of genius. I have worked with children and adults with autism, Down syndrome, coming from broken homes, and poverty, and every last one of them had gifts and genius. We are a part of a society in which genius is rarely nurtured— where instead we train everyone to think alike and practice the same thing. Our education model is an outdated European philosophy that operates based on a standardized model.

People are not encouraged to pursue their purpose and passions. They are squeezed into boxes in which they were not designed to fit. Even when they engage in their passion, it is normally as a hobby or aside-gig. They never take it seriously. Here is what I can tell you. You will never fire yourself and you will never undervalue your own work. By turning your side-gig into your business, you are in a better position to control your financial destiny.

  • All Revenue and Profits Are Not Meant to Be Spent

Even when you have your own company or a decent paying job, every dollar you earn is not meant to be spent. In fact, a significant portion should be reinvested to create other financial opportunities. You have not escaped the rat race until you have reached a point in which your money is working hard enough for you that you no longer have to work. When you do this, you will be at a point in your life in which everything you do is something you want to do instead of something you have to do.

  • Stop Trying to Keep Up With the Jones

This is something that I never understood. Far too many people are wasting money on things they don’t even want in order to keep pace with people they don’t even like. You should focus on creating a budget with a significant end in mind. Don’t focus on what the next person is doing. Focus on what you need to do to right your ship.

  • Downsize Wherever Possible

If you really took inventory of most of what you own and consistently spend money on, much of it is not needed. Downsize to reduce cost while simultaneously reducing the stress of consistently struggling to pay for all of that stuff. I am not suggesting that you should have something nice if you want it, but that may mean letting something else go. You can’t have it all, especially if you are trying to escape the rat race.

  • Consider Merging Your Family

This is something that my wife an I are seriously considering. It is common among Americans to force our progeny out of the house before they are prepared to take on the challenges of life, including financial management. We are strongly considering building a house large enough for all of our children and their families to move into a wing of the house. While we will pay to have the house built, the cost of sustaining the home and caring for family members will be shared. This will eliminate the possibility of our children struggling or constantly having to turn to us to bell them out. Plus, there is empirical and pragmatic data that suggests that these types of environments support holistic health. I know that it is less stressful and the primary support system for each person is all within the immediate living environment.  

  • Stop Giving Gravity to the Feedback You Get from Negative/Miserable People

Whether it is on social media or in person, we give way too much gravity to what others have to say about us, our beliefs, and our situations. If a person is not adding to you, they have no right to subtract from you through negative engagement. When I see this type of behavior, I often wonder just how miserable a person has to be in order to make a career out of attacking other people. Misery truly loves company, but you don’t have to invite in.

  • Question Your Conflicting Ideas About Social Media

You will be surprised how often I hear people complaining about how social media is controlling youth and destroying the world —suggesting that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are quite powerful in their ability to propagate subliminal messages. I actually agree that social media is powerful, but justas it can deliver negative messages, it can be used to promote products and services that you create. With acouple taps of a keyboard, you can now reach people all around the world in amatter of seconds. A large portion of these type of communications can be doneat no charge, while there are other paid methods that are very reasonable. Welive in an era in which there is absolutely no excuse not to besuccessful.

  1. Avoid Negative People At All Costs

For many of you, it is very difficult to get away from negative people because they are usually people that you have long ongoing relationships with. They are often family members and childhood friends. The idea of creating a new circle does not rest well with you because you are too attached to the old one. Another reason that it is hard is that there was likely a time when you were being just as negative as them. If you want to experience fulfillment and create a life outside of the rat race, you are going to have to free yourself from people who deflate you. You need people in your circle who will fan your flames.

Make Today the Day

It is time to stop procrastinating. It is amazing some of the excuses that people can come up with for why they have not started the process of changing their life’s situation. The truth is that there is no legitimate reason for not being actively engaged in becoming a better person, in your marriage, your finances, your work and beyond. In my latest book, Critical Mass: The Phenomenon of Next-Level Living, I talk about the toxic nature of procrastination and how it robs you of precious time that could be used to better and further yourself. Whether it is the fear of the unknown, or the fear of what others will say, or maybe the fear of failure, you have to confront that fear and make a decision that you are going to engage the need to change today.

There is no such thing as the perfect timing or the perfect opportunity. You have to create the perfect timing and opportunity through consistent engagement and persistence. You can get out of the rat race, but you will have to make decisive moves in order to do so. I challenge you to start today! ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.

The Transformative Power of Gratitude: 6 Key Principles to Harness the Power

The Transformative Power of Gratitude: 6 Key Principles to Harness the Power

The Transformative Power of Gratitude: 6 Key Principles to Harness the Power

The Transformative Power of Gratitude: 6 Key Principles to Harness the Power

Okay, let’s be real straight out of the gate. There are very few instances in which our days go as planned without any unexpected challenges or interruptions. It would definitely be nice if we could just coast through life and everything falls into place. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view it, life tends to throw curve balls and present dark spots that blind our vision. There are some people who are naturally able to sense and appreciate those moments when things are going great. Others find it hard to appreciate the bright spots because they are constantly focusing on the darkness in their lives. The real gem rests in those who can find a reason to be grateful regardless of the immediate circumstance.

At The Visionetics Institute, I teach my clients that gratitude is the gateway to abundance in every area of your life. The very notion of gratitude is being grateful for something you have that you could easily not have. So, in essence, gratitude is the recognition of those things that make life better and the appreciation associated with it. The truth is that no matter how bad things are at the current time, there is always something to be grateful for.

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There is a wealth of empirical and pragmatic data that proves that gratitude is literally a physical force that positively impacts the lives of those who possess it on a consistent basis. Over 30 years ago, Martin Seligman introduced a new field of psychology called “Positive Psychology.” Underwriting this new field were studies that examined the impact of certain emotions, such as forgiveness, optimism, happiness, gratitude, compassion, and altruism. At the time that Seligman introduced this idea, it was beyond revolutionary and radical. Until this point, most of the focus on emotion in the world of psychology was aimed at negative emotions.

What Seligman did, either knowingly or unknowingly, was interpolate the principles associated with the universal law of polarity. The law of polarity states that there is an equal and opposite reality to everything. Therefore, if negative emotions wreak havoc on a person’s life, then positive emotions would do the opposite.

In simple, gratitude is an emotion that is directly related to our ability to feel and express thankfulness and appreciation. There are studies that have proven that the expression of gratitude has the capacity to improve mental, relational, and physical health. It also impacts our overall experience of happiness throughout life. Without gratitude, we lose our capacity to experience and enjoy life.

Gratitude is directly associated with a decrease in anxiety, stress, depression, and even headaches. It improves energy, increasing self-esteem, and support are more positive and powerful self-image.

Cultivating Gratitude

Gratitude is a capacity that must be intentionally cultivated. We live in a world in which we are conditioned to focus on the negative. We take on victim mentalities that rest underneath the idea that life is happening to us. The truth is that life is not happening to us, it is responding to us, and when we learn how to engage it, life will happen for us. One method for cultivating gratitude that has worked extremely well for my clients is keeping a gratitude journal where you record experiences and realities for which you are grateful. Obviously, the more you journal, the more you will be able to cultivate gratitude. Keep your gratitude journal close to you at all times, so that you can easily record moments when you reflect on things worthy of your gratitude.

Following are six powerful principles that will help you live a life full of gratitude and the abundance it creates.

  1. Focus on Living Gratitude Even More than Having an Attitude of Gratitude

Many people make the mistake of seeing gratitude as simply being a part of the mentality — an attitude. Gratitude is a state of being and it is lived out each moment. When you have developed and cultivated it, it will be present despite your current mood or attitude. Even the most stable-minded person will have shifts in the mentality; however, when your life rests on a foundation of gratitude, you will be conditioned to search for the light even in the darkest of times.

While there is a mental component involved in creating a state of gratitude, there is so much more. The actualfeeling associated with gratitude initiates in the heart that is a result of shiftingour souls to receive.

2. Shift Away from Conditional Gratitude to Gratitude Beyond Conditions

It is not difficult for most of us to experience gratitude when things are going well and we are happy. It is important to understand that while gratitude has the ability to create happiness is not happiness; therefore, gratitude can be experienced even in moments of unhappiness and displeasure. The goal is to always live in a state of gratitude. In fact, gratitude has the ability to expedite healing and recovery from emotional trauma.

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While the intention to have a mindset of gratitude is important, it means very little if you don’t learn how to live and experience gratitude constantly despite your current condition. Many people become consumed by their current condition because there is nothing inherently present to rescue from focusing on the present darkness. Gratitude will allow you to locate the light in the midst of your darkness and it will also point you to thebrightness of future victories.

3. Resist Disqualifying Your Gratitude During Challenging Times

It is possible to be both, grateful and uncomfortable at the same time. Just because you are in the midst of a challenge does not mean that you should not be grateful. Moments are fleeting and your existence in this life is about more than any momentary discomfort you may experience during your journey to the apex of your journey — your destiny.

Simply understanding the force behind your purpose, should establish a state of gratitude that cannot be shaken. Momentary challenges and disruptions have no power to disqualify your purpose and destiny and you should not disqualify your gratitude because you are going through a difficult point. Your purpose is the insurance policy that guarantees that you are built for the challenge you are facing and that you will emerge victoriously.

Sidenote: Learn to be grateful for the things that are not happening as much as you focus on what is happening.

4. Shift From Only Being Grateful for What’s Present to Also Being Grateful for What is Absent

Think of a negative situation or circumstance that used to exist in your life but no longer exists. Now take the time to experience the feeling of appreciation you have for its absence. Life is not only about what is happening but it is also about what is not happening. As someone who had a catastrophic accident that broke my humerus and dislocated both shoulders, I am grateful to be absent of pain so excruciating that I could not dress myself or even sleep. There is the absence of personal tension from loved ones that I also appreciate. There are so many opportunities to find a reason to be grateful in the absence of things.

5. Learn To Be a Gracious Receiver

There are some of us who find it hard to receive from others. Maybe you come from a background in which gifts and offerings came with stipulations and conditions, or maybe your pride makes it difficult to accept things from others. However, there is a strong force hidden within the ability to be a gracious receiver. When I speaking of graciously accepting something that is being offered to you, I am not speaking so much toward the outward responses, such as complementing or praising the other person. I am speaking of the energy that you are emitting. See the gift as an act of love and shift your energy to a higher frequency that produces a strong vibrational force of love and appreciation.

As much as there is a benefit in giving, there is also a benefit in knowing how to receive.

6. Stop Complaining and Start Cherishing Those Challenging Moments

Complaining is an energy draining behavior that takes place at a very low frequency. It focuses solely on the darkness and pretends that the light does not exist. Complaining is the subtle way of saying, “I’m helpless.” It does not take a lot of effort to muster up gratitude for the abundance of blessing and benevolence that comes your way, but if we are not careful that gratitude will be consumed by habits of complaining, grumbling, and whining about our possessions, situations, and even those whose existence we should be cherishing.

The moment we see something as a burden, we strip the grace and joy out of it. We are able to see even our challenges as blessings, we remove the effort from the experience and we allow it to expand us

Gratitude should be the foundation on which you build the edifice of your life and purpose. It provides the proper lens through which you should view every situation, good or bad. Gratitude sustains composure in difficult moments and helps to sustain energy and passion. Without gratitude, the force of life will consume you. As you begin to experience gratitude in every area of your life, you will find that life is much more enjoyable.

To learn how you can work in a one-on-one capacity with Dr. Rick Wallace to achieve massive results in every area of your life with 1-on-1 Coaching Click Here!

7 Powerful Benefits of Hiring a Life Coach

7 Powerful Benefits of Hiring a Life Coach
Find the life coach that is right for you!

7 Powerful Benefits of Hiring a Life Coach

The title of this article could easily be “The Top 20 Life-Altering Benefits of hiring a Professional Life Coach.” But, you would probably not read it all of the way through, so I decided to publish an abridged version of an almost endless list of benefits you gain when you hire a qualified professional life coach.

Before examining the benefits of hiring a life coach, it is probably best to define what the term means. One of the reasons that I rarely refer to myself as a life coach is that the term has become so generalized and almost anyone can take an online course to become one that the term has lost a significant amount of its significance. However, there are some remarkable life coaches out there that are capable of producing exceptional results. While more often refer to myself as a life strategist and performance expert, I still fall under the category of a life coach. A life coach is someone who has the skillset and expertise to help train and teach you how to achieve the goals and aspirations that you have for your life in the most time-effective and efficient manner possible.

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What qualifies me as a life strategist and performance expert is 30 years in the fields of psychology, neuro-associative conditioning, neuro-linguistic programming, psycho-cybernetics, quantum physics, and more. Not to mention more than 30 years of success in the business world. Each coach is different and they bring a unique skill set to the table. “Life coach” is a term coined by Tony Robbins — a term he now hates, for the same reason I tend to shy away from when defining myself — the field has become watered down.

With all things being equal and based on the assumption that the life coach you hire is competent for that which they are being hired to do, there are some immensely powerful benefits associated with hiring a life coach. Following are seven of the most powerful benefits of hiring a life coach.

  1. A Good Life Coach Provides Clarity

A common obstacle to consistent success is ambiguity. It isimportant to develop a clear vision of what it is you want in life or it willbe extremely difficult to achieve. After all,how will you know you have reached your goal if you are not clear as to what itis? A life coach will help to develop a lucid perspicacity and vivid image ofwhat you are aspiring to accomplish. One of the first questions I ask myclients is, “what outcome are you expecting or looking for?” What are you hopingto gain by working with me? If they cannot answer this question, then this iswhere we start — developing a clear vision of the future.

2. Help Strengthen Your Personal Foundation

I often say that you don’t get what you want but who you become. If you desire a better life, it will require that you make some changing — that you achieve a consistent rate of growth. In order to create a lasting change, it will require a strong and stable foundation. Alife coach or life strategist will help you build that foundation so that youcan consistently build on top of it as you move forward.

3. Help You Identify Poor Thinking Habits

Your thoughts are the seeds of your destiny, and if you wantto change your life, this is where you have to start. At the most simplifiedlevel, your life is a result of your thinking. As a man or woman thinks so they become. Believe it or not, you areliving in the consequences and circumstances of your past thoughts. A good lifecoach will help you identify erroneous thought patterns and counterproductive paradigms that are not conducive to reaching the desired results.

4.  Accountability

Personal accountability is high on my list of priorities when working with my clients. First, there has to be personal accountability where a person is accountable to themselves for following through on what they say they are going to do. Next, they must be accountable to those who they care about. Finally, they must be accountable to there coach, who will remind them of the commitments they have made. A good coach will keep the vision in front of you and demand that you honor your commitment to reaching it.

5. Focus + Action = Results

A key element of benefitting from life coaching is shortening your steps or shortening thelearning curve. The goal is to intensify your focus and apply action that isguiding by your focus. When you combine focus and action, you will begin to seeresults that align with your goals. The goal is to reduce the trial and erroraspect of the push toward success. A good life coach will definitely help inthat area. There is no use tripping over obstacles when you don’t have to.

6. Rebuild or Reconstruct Your Self-Image

If there is one thing that I have learned in my years of applying psycho-cybernetics to the training process I use with my clients, itis the fact that if a person has a marred or negative self-image, it will be impossible to achieve the type of change that is conducive of consistent and long-term success. A person’s self-image is the bar that sets what they expectfrom themselves. Often, it will be necessary to help a person reconstruct amore powerful self-image that is capable of accomplishing the goals that are apart of a higher standard of excellence.

7. Help You Identify Your Purpose

There are very few things in life more frustrating in attempting to find fulfillment outside of your purpose. Yet, more than 85 percent of people in the United States are doing this daily. Working with a life coach will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses as well as your area of genius. When you discover your purpose, things simply make more sense, even the difficult moments. Understanding your purpose is an integral part of my training process. I tell my clients that once they discover their purpose it will make sense of their pain.

I consider myself to be an exceptional life strategist, and yet, I work with a coach. No one knows everything and having someone else who is aware of your vision working on it with you is immensely powerful.

The seven benefits listed here are by no means exhaustive. No matter where you are attempting to get in life, working with a qualified life coach will shorten the journey and make the journey more enjoyable.

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For a limited time, I am offering my Platinum Coaching Package at 50 percent off. That means you can get an entire year with yours truly working towards your goals and aspirations. Click here to learn more! Check out all of the packages, but the Platinum Package offer is definitely the best value. If you are ready to experience life at the next level, let’s get started.

6 Simple Steps to Manifesting a New Reality

6 Steps to Manifesting a New Reality

6 Simple Steps to Manifesting a New Reality

6 Steps to Manifesting a New Reality
6 Steps to Manifesting a New Reality

If there is something I constantly try to relay to my clients and those who attend my events, it is that your thoughts are the seeds of your destiny. The reality that you will experience in the future is simply the fruit of your current thinking. The only limitations that you have in this life are the ones that you accept in your mind. Subsequently, you have the power to create and manifest anything you desire. When I say manifest, I am not speaking of the fulfillment of some type of wish or fantasy, I am speaking of the systematic principle of using your mind to produce thoughts and behaviors that produce the results that you want. The principles and techniques that I will present moving forward are not mystical nor magical; they are governed by the universal laws under which all realities exist.

Before I show you the simple process for manifesting what you want in life, I want you to understand that these principles are unbiased — meaning that it will work for anyone who uses them. Here is the good news: life will pay whatever price you demand of it; however, in your demands must be a belief that what you are demanding is possible. There is a difference in what a person wants and what a person declares they will have. The declaration is a reflection of what you believe. It is an extension of your thought processes and your universal paradigm. Therefore, a belief must be established before you make your demands.

Following are six simple steps to manifesting a new reality in any area in your life. Remember, the only thing in your way is you. If you can overcome an obstacle in your mind, you can overcome it in the physical realm. Think it, speak it, and act it out until it becomes real.

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Close Your Eyes

Closing your eyes takes your physical sight out of the equation and it eliminates external stimuli and interference. Closing your eyes also places the “third eye,” your spiritual site and intuition front and center. Once you close your eyes, take several deep breaths, exhaling slowly. This will help to calm you down and it will allow you to center your focus.

Focus on What You Desire to Manifest

Develop a clear image of whatever it is that you want to create in your life. This is where you use the power of your imagination. If you can imagine it, you can have it. Allow me to explain why your imagination is so powerful and essential to manifesting a new reality. Your subconscious mind and your non-conscious brain cannot distinguish between what is being imagined and what is really happening; therefore, when you are able to imagine yourself being successful in your business, making your first million, building a strong and healthy marriage, and more, the mind experiences it as a reality. So, instead of working from a mental position where you have to figure out how to get something done, your mind believes that you have already done it. If you can do it once, you can do it again.

State It With Clarity Out Loud

Next, you want to state the thing you desire to manifest out loud. You want to be as specific and clear as possible when doing this. Say for instance that what you are attempting to manifest is your dream car. State the year, make, and model — along with color and amenities. You can list as little as five things that make this car special to you. Write it down and memorize it because you will repeat this every day for the next 30 days. When practicing this exercise, you will want to repeat this step at least 10 times each session.

Identify and Name the Emotions It Creates

The more you begin to establish this new reality in your mind, the more powerful it will be in creating emotions that are associated with this new reality. You want to identify this positive emotion and name them. Maybe it makes you feel happy or successful. It probably makes you feel excited about your new development. Write these emotions down and acknowledge them during each session.

Declare Your New Truth

While your eyes are still closed and your hands are still on your head, declare, “this is my new truth; this is my new reality.” Repeat this statement at least 10 times or until you actually feel a shift in your emotions and what you are feeling from a physiological respective.

Activate Both Sides of Your Brain

With your hands till placed on your head, open your eyes and move them from the left to the right in consecutive motions without moving your head. What you are doing to activating both, the left side (critical thinking) and the right side (intuition and creativity) of the brain to work in sync with one another. This is optimizing your brains capacity to create and reason simultaneously.

Conclusion

There is no limit to what you can create and manifest in your life. Your greatest impediments are the limiting beliefs you have housed in your brain. By practicing the steps listed here, you will systematically condition your mind and brain to work toward what you want instead of perpetuating what you don’t. This is not magic, it is actually physics at work on a molecular, micro, and macro level. You are never stuck in your current reality, you possess unlimited power to create a better whenever you choose. It requires focus, discipline, and commitment, but it is definitely possible. Remember, change starts with you.

8 Drug-Free Way to Lower Anxiety in Minutes

5 Early Warning Signs of A Child With Mental Health Problems

8 Drug-Free Ways to Lower Anxiety in Minutes

SHARE    BY JANDRA SUTTON | Courtesy of Greatest.com

5 Early Warning Signs of A Child With Mental Health Problems

Pretty much everyone deals with anxiety at some point in their lives, and you don’t have to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder to need a release—so we spoke with experts about how to identify anxiety (and how to deal with it).

“Anxiety can show up in our lives in many different ways,” says Ginger Poag, MSW, LCSW, a licensed therapist at Brentwood Wellness Counseling in Nashville, Tennessee. “But the most common are often irritability, lack of patience, worrying, difficulty sleeping, avoiding certain situations or people, inability to focus or concentrate, inability to relax, stress eating, tense muscles, and headaches.”

If you’re dealing with anxiety, it can be tough to keep going, and while there are a lot of ways to reduce anxiety in your life, we found some very specific options that you may want to try.

1. Listen to This Song

It may sound weird, but research suggests that listening to this songcould help reduce anxiety by up to 65 percent. Music therapy has been shown to help reduce anxiety for patients undergoing procedures—and it may even help reduce pain.

Try This: Block out a few minutes and pop in your headphones to listen to this song. (Yes, I tried it. And yes, it actually works.)

2. Get App-y

Anxiety can make you feel like you’re on an island, which is why it can be super helpful to talk to someone about how you’re feeling. Some people process things verbally, so talking about what’s going on in your head can help you begin to understand and cope with your anxiety.

“We can begin to catastrophize the problem and make ourselves believe the problem is much bigger and worse than what we originally believed,” Poag says. “I encourage clients to talk their anxiety out with a trusted friend or family member—by getting out our concerns verbally, we can begin to see the reality of our worries.”

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However, sometimes it can be hard to talk to your friends and family when you’re feeling anxious, and therapy can be expensive or overwhelming.

Try This: Download an app like 7 Cups to work through any anxiety that pops up in your life. The app offers free trained “listeners” who are other users of the app, group chats, and even virtual therapy sessions to help when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Even just working through the app’s guided activities can help improve your overall emotional wellness and distract you when you’re feeling anxious.

3. Drop Into Cat-Cow

Need to relax fast? There’s a yoga pose (OK, a lot of yoga poses) for that. However, cat-cow pose is a great way to reduce stress and anxiety so you can focus on your breathing.

Studies show that a regular yoga practice can have a significant impact on anxiety levels in your daily life, so taking the time to find your zen can be good for both reducing existing anxiety and preventing more in the future.

“A regular yoga practice can teach you how to become aware of the present moment,” says Lauren Zoeller, a certified yoga instructor and Whole Living Life Coach. “When you learn to live in the present moment, your body and emotions are able to cope with anxiety more efficiently.”

Try This: Using a yoga mat, blanket, or the space behind your desk (we won’t tell anyone!), position yourself onto your hands and knees with your shoulders aligned with your wrists and your hips over your knees.

With your weight balanced evenly, inhale as you slowly look up and let your stomach drop toward the floor. After a brief hold, exhale and tuck your chin to your chest. Moving gently, draw your navel toward your spine and round your back up toward the ceiling. Repeat slowly for one minute.

4. Breathe With a .GIF (Seriously)

This might sound a little redundant—hello, we’re already breathing—but experts agree that deep breathing can have a serious impact on stress and anxiety.

“Deep breathing allows the brain to receive more oxygen, activating the parasympathetic nervous system, which, in turn, lowers heart rate and blood pressure, which allows the body to experience calmness and relaxation,” Poag says.

Translation: The parasympathetic nervous system is what helps you relax, which is definitely helpful when you’re feeling anxious.

Try This: Use the handy .GIF below to focus on your breathing. Set a timer to give yourself a mini-break and turn your phone on silent while you breathe.

a .GIF of a geometric pattern

“Two minutes of controlled breathing can significantly change your attitude and will immediately decrease your stress level,” Zoeller says. “Even if that means locking yourself in the bathroom stall at work.” PIN IT
Don’t worry about controlling your thinking or needing to find your zen, which can sometimes leave you feeling more anxious. Be gentle with yourself and focus on the movement—and getting that sweet oxygen—as much as possible.

5. Take a Five-Minute Break

“It is proven that a regular meditation practice can help you cope with difficult situations, ease mental and physical pain, and eliminate the common factors associated with anxiety,” Zoeller says. “Five minutes of meditation a day can drastically your decrease your anxiety level.”

In fact, one study showed that 20 minutes of mindful meditation practice for four days cut anxiety levels by nearly 40 percent. Yep. That much.

Meditation has long been known for its benefits, and they’re totally backed by science. Not sure where to begin? Turns out you only need five minutes to get started.

Try This: Poag suggests downloading a guided meditation app to help the process along, or you can try watching a video on guided meditation on YouTube. It only takes a few minutes to reap the benefits of meditation, making it a perfect tool to combat anxiety.

6. Turn Anxiety Into Excitement

If you’re feeling anxious about a big work project, a date, or karaoke night, studies suggest that traditional anxiety-relieving techniques might not do as much as we’d like.

Try This: Harness your anxiety and focus on turning it into excitement insteadResearch on performance anxiety in highly skilled musicians shows that those who view anxiety as a good thing are more likely to perform better.

And, honestly, it makes sense: Perception matters, and science suggests that a little bit of stress can actually be beneficial. We spend a lot of time talking about getting rid of stress and anxiety (which, let’s be real, totally makes sense). But in reality, those things—in small doses—aren’t actually the worst things for us, so long as we perceive them as good.

7. Chew Some Gum

Chewing gum might not be the first remedy you think of when it comes to anxiety, but studies suggest that it may reduce fatigue, stress, and anxiety, and even boost your mood. Of the 101 study participants, chewing gum was also associated with a better perception of work performance.

A small study concluded that chewing gum helped reduce anxiety and increase alertness, and another determined that chewing gum reduced stress-related responses in the brain.

Try This: Pop a piece (or two) of gum into your mouth. This isn’t the time for casual chewing—one study suggests that the best benefit comes from more, uh, enthusiastic chewing.

8. Use the 5-4-3-2-1 Method

Project LETS—a nonprofit organization dedicated to erasing the stigma surrounding mental illness, diversity, trauma, and neurodivergence—suggests the 5-4-3-2-1 method as an emergency intervention for panic attacks or anxiety.

It involves using all of your senses and engaging your mind to find calm in the midst of anxiety. Plus, it’s something you can do out loud when you’re alone or in your head if you’re around other people.

Try This: Look around the room you’re in, and name 5 things you can see. Next, name 4 things you can touch or feel. Then, you’ll look for 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and—finally—one thing you can taste.

It might take practice, but the Mayo Clinic suggests that trying this grounding technique when you’re feeling anxious can help take the focus off your thoughts and place it on your surroundings instead. This might not seem like much, but disrupting anxiety before it builds can actually make it easier to cope in the long term.

The Bottom Line

Anxiety can make a big impact on your life, even if it’s not something you regularly deal with. If it is—and you’re struggling to identify the difference between anxiety and an anxiety disorder—try talking with a doctor or therapist.

“Anxiety is often related to an event or situation and tends to only last for the duration of that situation or event. Everyone may feel anxiety at some point, such as when a deadline is approaching,” Poag says.

Anxiety disorder, she says, is different in several ways. It can pop up for no specific reason, it’s often long-term and not situation-based, and it can seem impossible to control—especially if you start avoiding certain people or situations and worry excessively.

“Individuals should seek professional help if they have tried to control the anxiety and worrying with no success, and it has lasted for at least six months,” Poag says. “Or when anxiety begins to negatively impact relationships, work, or routine tasks.”

Stress and anxiety might be unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take steps to prevent them from negatively impacting our lives.

Jandra Sutton is an author, historian, and public speaker. She lives in Nashville with her husband and their two dogs, and Pluto is still a planet in her heart. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Breaking Free of Limiting Beliefs!

On the Other Side of Fear

Breaking Free of Limiting Beliefs!

For too often, people allow themselves to be governed by the beliefs and opinions of others. They are handed down limitations that lock them into a life of mediocrity. The truth is that the only limitations that you have are those that you accept in your mind.

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You have no obligation to carry the limitations of previous generations or to acquiesce the opinions of minimal-minded people who love nothing more than to whisper the sweet nothings of negativity in your ear. Your thoughts are the seeds of your destiny and you possess the power to declare and establish a new and more powerful reality for yourself, but you have to break free of the limiting beliefs that are currently stagnating your life.


You owe your creator your full participation in your purpose and destiny. Stop functioning from the default setting that culminates in an average life, believing that average is acceptable. You have the potential to be great and anything less than great is a failure in purpose and execution. You have the power to speak things into existence and live life at the next level.


Your purpose is bigger than any problem or challenge you will face. You have everything in you necessary to become all that you were designed to be. If you want an exceptional life, you must become exceptional. You don’t get what you want; you get what you become.


I challenge each of you to rise to the level of your potential and shed the limiting beliefs that stifle your progress. I invite you to live at the level of your design. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.


From now until 6:00 p.m. today, Sunday, September 30, 2018, I will be offering all one-on-one programs at a 50 percent discount. Simply purchase the package of your choice, screenshot the purchase confirmation and email it to LifeChange@rickwallacephd.link along with the promo code: VisionPromo2018 and 50 percent of your purchase will be refunded immediately.


Get your signed copy of my 20th book, Critical Mass: The phenomenon of Next-Level Living at https://www.rickwallacephd.link/critical-mass/
Work with yours truly in a one-on-one capacity. Visit https://www.rickwallacephd.link/1-1-coaching/ or email LifeChange@rickwallacephd.link

The Dangers of Childhood Trauma: An Unaddressed Health Epidemic

The Dangers of Childhood Trauma: An Unaddressed Health Epidemic

The Dangers of Childhood Trauma: An Unaddressed Health Epidemic

Nearly 30 years ago I set out to answer a very piercing question that was at the heart of an enigma that yearned to be solved. The question can be summed up by the need to develop a lucid perspicacity of the forces at play that resulted in 120 years (153 years currently) of quasi-freedom for Blacks with virtually no substantive social, political, or economic progression. My background in psychology led me to an initial theory which I entitled Collective Cognitive Bias Dominance Theory, which proposed that Blacks were suffering from a collective distortion in our thinking, paradigms, social views and more. This theory suggested that the slavery experience resulted in a mal-adaption in social reasoning.

While I was able to uncover a wealth of empirical data as well as accumulate new data to support the CCBD theory, it was not long before I realized that there was substantially more at play than a warped sense of thinking that had been passed down through social learning theory and cognitive distortions. It seemed that psychopathological behavior was somehow ingrained into the psychology of a large percentage of Blacks in this country and other colonized geographic locations.

This gap between what I was able to prove concerning cognitive influences on the behavior of a large portion of the Black collective, forced me to examine the intergenerational transmission of trauma. It was during my research on the intergenerational trauma that I was introduced to the world of epigenetics. In simple, epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes to the underlying DNA sequence — a change in phenotype without a change in genotype — which in turn affects how cells read the genes.

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Every cell in the body has the ability to read DNA sequences, interpret and transcribe what it reads to determine how it will express itself. Environmental influences create what are known as epigenetic tags that have the ability to activate and deactivate genes based on cellular transcriptions. This explains how identical twins — sharing identical DNA can end up with such different physical outcomes in life. One twin dies early from cancer, while the other lives to be 95-years-old. Environmental experiences serve to rewire genetic expression causing abnormal cellular mutation — resulting in disease.

Looking At the Broader Picture

While my research began with a focus on the Black collective and the central issues therein, I quickly learned that epigenetics was not confined by race, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, etc. People from all backgrounds deal with epigenetic influences at varying degrees. Yes, Blacks have unique experiences that contribute to their current condition and these experiences must be addressed and mitigated to see significant and lasting change. What I want to do here is focus on another group that has been impacted through epigenetics — children.

As it turns out, childhood trauma has an immense impact on social development, brain function, and general health. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, a study sponsored by the CDC and Kaiser, produced startling results that illuminated a health epidemic that was unaddressed at the core level. The study examined the impact of childhood trauma on the overall health of children and adults.

For the purpose of brevity, I am going to simplify the elements of the study, which involved 17,000 subjects between 1995 to 1997. The study looked to identify what it classified as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). These experiences included:

  • Physical and emotional sexual abuse
  • Physical and emotional neglect
  • Parental mental illness
  • Dometic violence
  • Substance abuse
  • Incarceration
  • Parental separation (divorce or legal separation)

During the study, each of these unique experiences was given a point value of one. It was discovered that 67 percent of the subjects had at least one point (one adverse childhood experience), and at least one in eight had four points or higher. The correlation here is that the higher the score the poorer the health outcome of these subjects. That’s right, adverse childhood experiences have a direct correlation with predictable health outcomes. There are multitudinous birth cohorts that are impacted by an increased ACE score, but there are five highly prevalent areas worth noting — depression, certain forms of cancer, sexual promiscuity, ischemic heart disease and arrested brain development.

One finding that is noteworthy is the fact that an ACE score of four increases the risk for suicide by 12 times.

While certain health issues can be connected to poor lifestyles and poor decisions, the conditions under which these decisions are made is not adequately understood. When a child or an adult experience trauma in the form of any type of threat, but especially those listed as adverse childhood experiences, it triggers a fear response that serves to shut down the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for making executive decisions and impulse control. In situations in which you have seen inexplicable behavior in which you knew the person knew better, it could be that they were functioning through the lack of inhibition created by an incapacitated prefrontal cortex. There was no impulse control.

In addition to the fear response, there is the stress response, which activates the hypothalamus — sending a signal to the adrenal gland to produce adrenaline and cortisol — placing the body in fight or flight mode. This is a great thing to have when you are in the wild and you stumble upon a lion or a tiger. The rush of adrenaline and cortisol prepares you to either run or defend yourself. This stress response also works to pull blood (oxygen) from major organs like the heart and brain to send to your extremities to support combat or flight. This is not a problem as long as the experience is shortlived (happening over the course of seconds). However, what is the outcome when you are constantly bringing the lion home with you — constantly experiencing the fear and anxiety associated with paradigms that have been shaped by adverse childhood experiences. Something that was meant to save you ends up killing you.

A Deeper Look At Environment

When we speak of environment most people tend to think of things like the home and community and maybe even what a person eats on a regular basis. Ischaemic heart disease is the number one killer in the western hemisphere, which includes the United States. Most people either view ischaemic heart disease as a result of genetics or poor diet. What should be considered is the fact that a person with an ACE score of four or higher significantly increased BMI, WC, and an increased resting heart rate.

One point that Dr. Bassel van der Kolk, one of the foremost leading experts in trauma, points out constantly is that it is the body that keeps the score when it comes to trauma. The act of becoming traumatized by an event is first physiological (experienced in the body) and then psychological (processed through the mind). The absorption and processing of trauma by the body have a massive impact on health outcomes.

There is a standing belief that children are highly resilient, which they are; however, the presence of resilience does not exempt children from the residual negative impact of ACEs.

Common Misdiagnosis

One of the most common misdiagnoses among children under the age of 10, especially males, is ADHD. As we learn more about the impact of  ACE on human behavior as children and adults, we are discovering that what was once believed to be symptoms of ADHD is most likely the results of untreated ACEs. ADHD, which is usually treated with stimulants like Vyvanse, Adderall, Ritalin, and Concerta, is a phantom used to explain both natural and disruptive behavior in young children. Children learn better through movement and discovery, not by sitting still and listening, so a certain amount of hyperactivity should be expected. When this behavior becomes excessive, it is usually due to exposure to multiple ACEs.

What is interesting is that this is not primarily a racial or socioeconomic issue. While some groups are impacted more, almost everyone has been impacted by it or knows someone who has. How many people reading this has a person in their family who drinks too much? What about someone whose parents were divorced when they were young? Are there any readers who witnessed domestic violence as a child? The statistics bear out the fact that regardless of race or socioeconomic status, approximately 67 percent of the population has an ACE score of at least one.

While there is still work to be done in the area of quantitative and qualitative research, it is clear that the use of ACEs as a predictive mechanism to help identify potential poor health outcomes long before they occur. We should also work to reduce ACEs whenever possible. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.

Bibliography

DeGruy, J. (2009). The African American Adolescence Respect Scale: The Measure of Prosocial Attitude. The University of Portland, 1-3.

DeGruy, J., Brennan, E. M., & Briggs, H. E. (2009). The African American Adolescence Respect Scale: The Measure of Prosocial Attitude. The University of Portland, 1-3.

Dube, S., Feletti, V., Dong, M., Giles, W., & Anda, R. (2003). The impact of adverse childhood experiences on health problems: evidence from four birth cohorts dating back to 1900. National Institutes of Health, 37(3):268-77.

Kahane-Nissenbaum, M. C. (2011). Exploring Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in Third Generation Holocaust Survivors. University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons.

Kardiner, A. (1941). The Traumatic Neurosis of War. New York: Hoeber.

Kellermann, N. P. (2001). Transmission of Holocaust Trauma – An Integrative View. Israel Journal of Psychiatry, 256-267.

Kolk, B. A. (2001). Exploring the Nature of Traumatic Memory: Combining Clinical Knowledge with Laboratory Methods. Trauma and Cognitive Science Haworth Press, Inc.

Kolk, B. V. (1987). Psychological Trauma. American Psychiatric Press.

Kolk, B. V. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. New York: Penguin Publishers.

Pretty, C., O’Leary, D. D., Caimey, J., & Wade, T. J. (2013). Adverse childhood experiences and the cardiovascular health of children: a cross-sectional study. BioMed Central — BMC Pediatrics, 13: 208. doi: 10.1186/1471-2431-13-208.

Stevenson, H. C. (2006). Parents’ Ethnic-Racial Socialization Practices: A Review of Research and Directions for Future Study. American Psychological Association, 1-24.

Stevenson, H. C. (2015). Development of the Teenager Experience of Racial Socialization Scale: Correlates of Race-Related Socialization Frequency from the Perspective of Black Youth. The Journal of Black Psychology.

Stevenson, H., Davis, G., & Abdul-Kabir, S. (2001). Stickin to, Watchin Over and Gettin With: An African American Parent’s Guide to Discipline. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.

Wallace, R. (2014). Epigenetics in Psychology: The Genetic Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma in African Americans. The Odyssey Project Journal of Scientific Research.

Wallace, R. (2014). The Influence of Cognitive Distortions on the Social Mobility and Mental Health of African Americans. The Odyssey Project Research Journal.

Wallace, R. (2015). Collective Cognitive-bias Reality Syndrome. The Odyssey Project Journal of Research and Cognitive Enrichment!

Wallace, R. (2015). Collective Dominative Cognitive Bias Syndrome. The Odyssey Project Journal of Scientific Research.

Wallace, R. (2016). African American Trauma: More than Meets the Eye! The Odyssey Project Journal of Scientific Research.

Wallace, R. (2016). Racial Trauma & African Americans. The Odyssey Project.

Wallace, R. (2017). Born in Captivity: Psychopathology as a Legacy of Slavery. Houston: Odyssey Media Group & Publishing House.

Wallace, R., & Wallace, D. (2010). Gene Expression and Its Discontents: The Social Production of Chronic Disease. New York, NY: Springer.

Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone? The Dangers of Digital Addictions

Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone? The Dangers of Digital Addictions

One of the first points I make to new clients is the need to heavily manage the time they spend on their smartphones and other digital devices. While the technology that drives our exposure to media has opened up the world of possibilities and opportunities for people around the world, it has also served to cripple and paralyze the minds of many of those same people. There is a wealth of empirical data that suggests that we have become addicted to digital technology. This technology that should connect us has caused us to become more disconnected than ever. We don’t call, we text. We don’t visit, we send inbox messages.

There has been more than one occasion where people have filmed people drawing instead of trying to find a way to save them. Everyone is either in front of a camera or behind one.

Maintaining Your Personal Sovereignty

I am a firm believer that how you start your day will have a massive impact on how your day goes. It does not mean that if you start your day on a positive note that things will not go wrong during the day; it means that starting your day in the right frame of mind will place you in the best position to effectively meet the challenges of the day when they arrive.

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Here is the problem, the vast majority of the industrialized population grabs their phone the first thing after waking up in the morning. Even before rolling out of bed, they have the phone in their hand. When the first thing you do when you wake up is reach for your phone, you are surrendering your personal sovereignty — the ability to be in control of your life and its affairs. You make yourself vulnerable and reactive to whatever is on that phone — emails, text messages, social media notifications, comments on previous social media posts, news of current events, and more.

I believe that when you are able to win the first hour of the day, you will win the day. In order to win the first hour, you have to have control of what you encounter that will impact your STATE (your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical state of being). When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is establish a heart of gratitude. I identify at least three things I have to be grateful for. One thing is constant. I look over at my wife and as I watch her take a breath, my heart swells with gratitude.

What I can tell you is that it is impossible to harbor low-vibration attitudes when you are functioning from a place of gratitude. Low-vibration attitudes include fear, anger, jealousy, envy, sadness, anxiety, worry, etc. So, if the first hour of your day is immensely important, the first five minutes of that first hour is literally the key to the treasure of creating and manifesting the life you want to live; however, if you are picking up that phone before you do anything else, you are surrendering your personal sovereignty and you become a prisoner to what you discover when you begin scrolling. Maybe you got some great news and it puts you in an awesome state, but what happens when you have bad news or you receive a notification of pending challenges for the day before you have had a chance to set your STATE?

Here is another problem with surrendering your sovereignty to your smart devices (including, tablets, computers, televisions, radios, etc.) — even when the news is good, you are training your brain to find its STATE by consulting a device. At that point, you no longer have the sovereignty to set your state, but you are at the mercy of what you discover on your device. Most of us have our devices set to send us all types of push notifications that deal with every aspect of our lives. The problem is that we don’t control when those notifications arrive. When you give up your personal sovereignty, You will begin to notice that your movement and your mindset has become highly capricious. Why is this? It is because your state is being controlled by the information you are receiving, instead of being controlled by a state of gratitude that will help you properly contextualize and frame every situation.

The Dopamine Factor

If we are to effectively manage the access to such digital prowess, we must develop a comprehensive perspicacity of how it impacts us. It is imperative that we understand that digital technology that delivers information is designed to be addictive. A recent study conducted by Harvard University discovered that dopamine levels rise significantly is direct correspondence to smartphone exposure.

What is dopamine? Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain‘s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards but to take action to move toward them. Dopamine deficiency results in Parkinson’s Disease and people with low dopamine activity may be more prone to addiction. The presence of a certain kind of dopamine receptor is also associated with sensation-seeking people, more commonly known as “risk takers (Staff, 2018).”

Dopamine is known as the feel-good hormone. It is where we get our sense of pleasure. Not only does dopamine help us sense pleasure in certain experiences, but it also drives us to seek those experiences — leading many experts on addiction to the conclusion that dopamine plays a significant role in the development of addictions. What is interesting is the fact that the lower the capacity to produce dopamine autonomously through multiple activities makes a person more susceptible to addiction. In other words, when a person is unable to create pleasurable experiences for themselves, they become vulnerable to mechanisms, devices, and chemicals that can.

One of the inherent dangers of smartphones is that they are designed to produce dopamine rushes, and most people are getting the majority of their dopamine fixes from their phones without ever knowing it. Things like family time, walks in the park, simple conversations have been replaced with scrolling devices.

Allow me a moment to elucidate my point here. While my primary focus here is smartphones, this takes place with tablets, laptops, computers, televisions, radios, video games, and more. I recently deleted a video game called Golf Crush from my smartphone. There were two primary reasons:

  1. I found myself playing the game when I should have been doing something more productive (outside of the allotted time to play.)
  2. I found myself allowing my mood and STATE to be determined by how well I played at a given time. That is what you call surrendering your sovereignty.

Fortunately for me, I have a lot of sources to drive my dopamine production so I never experienced withdrawals from the game and I don’t miss it.

What should also be understood here is the fact that it isn’t simply your smartphone (digital devices) that is the problem, but it is all of the mediums of engagement (social media, mobile apps, internet, etc.) that contribute to this problem as well. See, the same understanding of neuroscience that leads me and other experts to the conclusions set forth here is currently being exploited by your favorite social media platforms, mobile app developers, news outlets, and more. The chances are that you came across this article through one of the aforementioned channels.

The Danger for Young Children

Because the technology in question is still relatively new, we have not yet experienced the long-term ramifications of its use. My generation never had cell phones or computers as children, but the generation that is growing up now was born into it. It is not uncommon to see five-year-olds with cell phones. Toddlers as young as two are swiping and scrolling on tablets. This generation of parenting regnantly consists of using technology to babysit our children. We use devices to keep our children quiet and still — not giving consideration to the importance of movement and discovery in their growth and development (Sobel & Sommerville, 2010; Gabbard & Rodrigues, 2017). Children were not meant to sit still and be quiet.

When we relegate children to engaging life through digital devices, we simultaneously limit their capacity to develop and expand themselves mentally, emotionally, and physically.

When it comes to our older children, the nefarious disruptions of digital addiction and influence are even more evident. Have you been in the same room with your teen or preteen and watched them scroll their phones for hours? When you are riding in the car or out in public do they find it hard to set their phones down for even the shortest periods of time? You will also find that your least active child will have the highest screen time in the house. The more active the child, the more sources of dopamine production they have at their disposal. Kids who have multiple things to keep them engaged are not as dependent on their smartphones and social media to make them feel good.

Neuroplasticity is a term used in neuroscience to describe the ability to change the way that the brain is wired to change thinking and outcomes. We are constantly rewiring our brains over the course of our lives. The thoughts we engage, our daily experiences, and the information that we encounter all contribute to the shaping of our thinking through the rewiring of our brain. When a child’s day is dominated by screen time, the way the brain is wired will be heavily influenced by what they engage during that screen time. Just as that screen time is limiting them physically, it is also limiting their exposure to a vast world and what it has to offer — not to mention the inherent dangers associated with unmonitored smartphone use. There are predators out there looking to prime and exploit your children and these children are not prepared to defend themselves against these threats.

When you understand how neuroplasticity works, you will understand that the former idea that you are pretty much who you are going to be by the age of five is not true. You have the capacity to grow and evolve by managing what you expose yourself to on a regular basis. The more prevalent the exposure, the more it will impact how your brain is being rewired. You can teach your brain to improve in a way that will benefit you in achieving goals and accomplishments or you can train your brain to work against you. I don’t think this is a decision that we should leave up to our children.

Another danger is that the internet is unregulated. There are no rules or checks and balances to ensure the accuracy of the information that is out there. Without proper training in the validation of sources, it is easy to be misinformed and misled. No matter what your belief, you are likely able to find something on the internet to support it. Our children are not advanced enough in this area to discern what is true and what is not.

Earlier this summer, my wife and I noticed some of the behaviors I have referred to in our teens. Our immediate response was to cut and regulate screen time. We are still making adjustments. What I recommend is observing your children after you cut their screen time. Do they immediately find something constructive to do, or do they become lethargic and unintentional in their actions and activity? Pay attention to whether they tend to sleep away the time in which they don’t have their phones. This is a clear indicator that they are heavily dependent on their devices for a sense of wellbeing.

The Depth of Digital Addiction

Because we see nothing inherently wrong with smartphones and the internet, and many of us run our businesses and do our jobs through these mediums, we fail to see the threat associated with massive exposure. When I use the term “massive exposure,” I am referring specifically to uncontrolled and undesignated exposure. When you are just there to be there. You are not working, you are not researching, you are not building your brand or sharing your message, but just filling in space and wasting time.

I have been out to dinner or lunch with my wife and we took notice of all of the people who were sitting with someone while scrolling their phones. Interpersonal engagement is immensely important to the holistic development and fulfillment of humans (Weber, 2007). It is not just our children that have been pulled in by the kinetic force of digital technology. I have observed a family sitting at a table and every last member, including the parents, was deeply consumed by whatever they were looking at on their screen. They were ignoring one another, failing to enjoy the opportunity to engage one another. We are literally training ourselves to be inattentive to the needs of those who should matter the most.

This unfettered exposure to the digital world has also served to desensitize us to some of the most grotesque behavior imaginable. Teen violence is at an all-time high and it is being broadcasted daily. The more teens view it, the less appalled and upset it makes them, increasing the risk of them committing an act of violence (Staff, 2017).

Any time that something becomes so prevalent in our lives, we are forced to ask and answer the question of why. We must also determine if this thing is working for our betterment or to our detriment. No one in a free industrialized society is exempt from this threat or uninfluenced by it. How often are you holding your phone during the day? How hard is it not to look at your phone while eating or holding a conversation? For us to function optimally, we must maintain our personal sovereignty in order to ensure that we are setting the direction for our lives. Most of the world’s population is reactive to the external situations around them. It is only when you are able to develop the calm and stability created by a heart of gratitude will you be able to engage an unpredictable world with certainty and confidence. It is time that we reclaim the power of personal sovereignty — being proactive in designating how we will use this technology to our benefit rather than our detriment. ~ Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D.

References

Dreifus, C. (2017). Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens. New York Times.

Gabbard, C., & Rodrigues, L. (2017). Optimizing Early Brain and Motor Development through Movement. Early Childhood News.

Haynes, T. (2018). Dopamine, Smartphones & You: A Battle for Your Time. Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Sobel, D. M., & Sommerville, J. A. (2010). The Importance of Discovery in Children’s Casual Learning from Interventions. Naitonal Institutes of Health – Fronteirs in Psychology.

Staff, E. (2017). Risk Factors for Youth Violence. Youth Violence: A Report of the Surgeon General.

Staff, E. (2018). What is Dopamine? Psychology Today.

Weber, M. J. (2007). The Importance of Interpersonal Relationships. National Counsel of Professors.

Dr. Rick Wallace is the Founder & CEO of The Visionetics Institute and the author of 20 books that include Born in Captivity: Psychopathology as a Legacy of Slavery and Critical Mass: The Phenomenon of Next-Level Living. He is a leading contributor to the development of solutions that will lead to the elevation and empowerment of the Black collective.